Seawolves still confident after 1-point loss against state rivals

The UAA men’s basketball team traveled north on Dec. 8 to compete against in-state rivals UAF. In the annual game, taking place at the end of first semester each year, the Seawolves were beat at the last minute.

Sjur Berg Photo credit: Skip Hickey

At 68-67, the Seawolves were far from their 26-point win the previous year. This added another loss to UAA’s conference recording.

Head coach Rusty Osborne explained that they have been preparing for this and work hard to show up as tough competition.

“We had a good week of practice and worked on a lot of things we were deficient at and made some adjustments with some of the things we were doing,” Osborne said.

Despite the effort, the Seawolves came up just short. They averaged 47.4 percent on their field goals for the duration of the game, just below UAF’s 48.0 percent.

“We ran a fluid offense where everyone was involved, and depending on who is [doing well] or who is [not doing well],” Osborne said. “We preach that if you buy into the system, it won’t change who the leading scorer is over the course of the year it just may change from game to game. It just takes patience.”

Sophomore guard Brennan Rymer proved to be the most successful for the Seawolves, making a total of 7 FG on his 11 attempts. Following him was junior forward Sjur Berg with 6 total on 9 attempts, and then junior guard Tyler Brimhall with 4 total on 11 attempts.

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“It has been difficult to get back into it [after a year off],” Berg said. “The last few weeks have allowed me to get more and more confident on the court and that it what it is all about for me.”

While they averaged a decent field goal percentage, the Seawolves lacked in many other things that ultimately cost them the game.